


A Lullaby For the Brave

by zabiume



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Good Parent Din Djarin, Light Angst, Lullabies, Parent-Child Relationship, Soft Din Djarin, is the sentiment that spurned this fic, oh to be held by my bounty hunter father when i have a nightmare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29778846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabiume/pseuds/zabiume
Summary: Din's still got a-ways to go before he can put Grogu on a rock, call out to the Jedi, and finish the mission that he's shouldered for the better part of the year.Too bad neither of them are willing to let go just yet.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	A Lullaby For the Brave

**Author's Note:**

> Set between Chapter 13 and Chapter 14. My only exposure to the Star Wars franchise has been the Mandalorian (TV) so warnings for possible wider-franchise inconsistencies. I only care for my baby, Din Djarin, and his baby, Grogu.

The Outer Rim, desolate as it had been for a while, was rocky territory. 

Even as Din had set the course north, he knew it would be a while before they’d make safe landing  _ anywhere _ , the wings of Razor Crest’s turbines interspersed with muck and space junk in hyperdrive. If they landed by dawn -- if they landed  _ at all _ at this point -- he knew the ship would need a few thorough rounds of cleaning. 

Clicking off the controls, Din left the cockpit to begin his nightly shut-down routine. The industrious whirs and rhythms of the ship were as familiar to him as his own body, the mechanical thrumming a sort of proof-of-life in the vast and uncharted territory. It was always easy to feel small around these parts--  _ if  _ you weren’t traveling in a gigantic hunk of undeterred and mostly impenetrable metal. Din didn’t spend a lot of time thinking of life’s greater questions, though, mostly because having a mission allowed him the luxury of only thinking from this meal to the next. A fleeting thought did occur every now and then, nonetheless, liminal as the passing wind and just as melancholic. 

Mostly, Din just thought about the kid. 

_ Grogu _ , his brain corrected, as he flicked off a light switch and traipsed down towards the bedsit. It was just his luck that Grogu slept sixteen hours on a good day; just as long as Din checked in every once in a while, long enough for the kid to sport him a sleepy smile and roll back asleep, hands tucked over his belly in salient peace. Not even to himself would he admit that there was a strange satisfaction in this little habit, an unconscious ritual that they honed from many hours in the air with no one but each other and Razor Crest for company. 

He slid a finger across the keypad and stepped back as the shutter rose upwards. 

_ There you are, _ he thought, letting out a relieved sigh as Grogu’s head peeked out from under his cloak. 

“Bumpy ride,” he acquiesced, as a way of greeting, when Grogu drowsily cracked one eye open. Normally, this would be the point when the child would be appeased enough to settle back down. Now, however, he seemed to crane his head, eyes fixed on Din almost searchingly, like he was looking for something beyond his mere presence. 

“Go back to sleep, Grogu,” he insisted, gently pushing the hammock aside so he could roll himself under it. Once he was settled on the pillow, he glanced upwards and saw Grogu’s familiar silhouette through the thin muslin cloth. There was a soft mewl in acknowledgement. Grogu ambled around back to his original position. 

Then, it was quiet. Or at least, as quiet as things could be in the strait they were floating through. There had been a lot of rough passages in his time as a pilot--and so Din knew that this too would pass once they approached clearer airspace--but the flotsam that bumped and chinked the hull of the ship created shudders that were short, and disturbing, to say the least. 

Above him, Grogu whimpered. 

Din shook himself off the sound, convinced that the child would fall asleep soon enough-- once the ship gained equilibrium again. When the next wave of disturbances vibrated through the frame, however, the whimpers grew in intensity. Din could see Grogu rock himself back and forth, his cries low and continuous under his feeble breaths. 

“Hey,” he muttered, rising slowly. “Grogu.” No avail. The cries only grew, stuttered and broken even as the ship came to a standstill. “ _ Grogu _ . We’re in the clear now, kid.”

“ _ Mrrngh _ .”

Din lifted himself off his bed and carefully threw the covers aside, bringing both his hands around the ties of the makeshift hammock. He brought it forth gently, only to see that Grogu wasn’t awake--or disturbed by the noise-- but asleep. And seemingly plagued by a...nightmare? His brows were distressed, tender forehead furrowed by a trembling that seemed to shake his entire body. His hand stretched out, grasping and lashing at the air as he writhed in discomfort. 

“Grogu,” Din said, hands coming out to grasp him on either side of his tiny body, only to hold back when the child let out a fractured coo. He steeled himself nonetheless and lifted him out of the hammock, gently cradling the head and the torso to his chest like Peli had taught him. 

“ _ Gently, Mando, _ ” he could almost hear her chide,  _ “You lug your kid around like a sack of harksnips?”  _

Of course not, Din thought, gently running his fingers through the tiny hairs at the top of Grogu’s head. He was soft, _ incredibly so--  _ so breakable and small, yet potent with a serene power that made him dangerous, if only to himself. He was--he was small. Din registered that all the time-- _ every single time _ he held him, and yet. 

_ And yet.  _

“I’m here, Grogu,” Din shushed, rocking him back and forth awkwardly when he began whimpering again.  _ I’ll always be here,  _ he thought, on instinct, but immediately caught his tongue from letting it slip _.  _

Because that was an outright lie, wasn’t it? The days leading up to their trip to Tython was marked by a foreboding that he neither wanted to acknowledge nor give deep thought to. Grogu was his only until he was the Jedi’s; that was the mission, regardless of how contrary it felt to his experience. Young as he was, the child was incredibly perceptive. He seemed to know as well as his caretaker did that change was in the air and time was scarce, alarmingly so now that they had a destination. 

It seemed that Din Djarin was not the only one perturbed by the fork in the road to come. 

“It’s okay,” he said anyway, when two, watery eyes blinked open at him. “I’m here.” 

Grogu warbled, one wrinkled hand curling as he shrank further into himself. Din lifted him to his shoulder, pressed their heads together until Grogu’s large ear was comfortably squished under his chin. 

On Mandalore, there was a song the matrons used to sing to the foundlings sometimes. Din himself had never experienced the comfort of a lullaby, but the old, wispy lyrics chimed in his head anyway, pulling itself together through memory alone. It was a song about Mandalore the Great’s victories, among other things. A song of courage. 

Grogu would be needing that, in the days to come. 

Despite the self-conscious flare in his cheeks that he hid behind his helmet, he began to hum the verses to the best his memory would allow him. It was a powerful song--and a tender one-- lilting and dropping from point of origin to crest. It was a song for the brave, for the lost,  _ for the children _ \-- as all good verse was-- and it was a song that he wished someone would have hummed to  _ him  _ more often. 

“ _ Mandalore the Brave, the Brave... _ ” He watched Grogu’s eyes close again, sedate and content. “ _ Come forth and conquer… _ ” 

Despite the off-tune rhythm, it seemed to work to the effect of lulling Grogu back to sleep, but he let him stay in his arms a little longer. In the quiet of the ship, he reflected on Ahsoka’s warning, on the perils that lay ahead. But somehow, the familiar ache in his chest, the swell of panic -- none of it came. Just floated around faintly in the back of his head, overwhelmed by the thrum of the ship-- and of the song. 

It was a song of courage, after all. 

Din supposed he would be needing it too, in the days to come. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
